Soham Set To Mark 10th Anniversary Of Ian Huntley's Murder Of Holly Wells And Jessica Chapman

Soham Murders 10 Years On: Maxine Carr's Child 'May Never Know Mother's True Identity'
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The secret identity of Maxine Carr, the then-girlfriend of Soham killer Ian Huntley, may never be revealed even to her children, according to the strict terms of her anonymity order.

Carr, 35, provided Huntley with an alibi when he had murdered 10-year-old schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

Their parents and the Soham community are marking 10 years since their burnt bodies were discovered at an air base at Mildenhall in Suffolk.

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Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, who were murdered by Ian Huntley

Carr was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison in 2003 after being found guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

Carr, who reportedly miscarried twice since 2006, is understood to have become a mother in October last year.

She is also known to have married in 2008 to a man who knew of her past.

However, the strict terms of her order mean their baby may never know her real name or how she protected Huntley.

Carr was originally released on probation after serving 21 months and, despite the media challenging her right to anonymity in the High Court, the order remained because of "concerns over her health and threats to her safety".

Although Carr was not implicated in the murder, she gave Huntley a false alibi, claiming that she had been with him at the time of the killings, which delayed the police investigation.

Huntley, who is serving two life terms for their murder, eventually admitted that the girls had died in his house after he had invited them in, but said their deaths were accidental.

He had told them that Carr was in the house but she had actually gone to Grimsby to visit relatives.

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Maxine Carr, who gave killer Ian Huntley a false alibi, was given a new identity after her release

Carr is just one of four former UK prisoners to be given secret identities, along with child killer Mary Bell and James Bulger's murderers Robert Thompson and Jon Venables.

Police protection and a new identity for Carr are thought to have cost the taxpayer millions.

A criminologist this week described Ian Huntley as "the most terrifying type of killer", who continues to fascinate the public because of his apparent normality.

Criminologist Colleen Moore said it was the very fact that Huntley had not seemed to present any threat before the killings of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman which made him all the more sinister.

She added that the impact his crime had on the town of Soham and the wider community was unlikely to be diminished in a lifetime.

Mrs Moore, principal lecturer in criminology at Anglia Ruskin University, said: "Ian Huntley represents the most terrifying type of killer because of the very fact he seemed so ordinary.

"Whereas somebody like Moors murderer Ian Brady would seem to fit the stereotype of a killer, Huntley seemed the complete opposite.

"This plays to our worst fears because it shows that the most heinous of crimes can be committed by the people we least suspect."

Sharon and Les Chapman, parents of Jessica Chapman, have rarely spoken publicly in recent years.

But they recently broke their silence to hail the first anniversary of the Police National Database - introduced to close gaps in information-sharing between police forces.

Holly's brother, Oliver Wells, also recently spoke publicly for the first time about the killings.

Now aged 22, he told the Radio Times that he thought about his sister frequently.

"I wish I could see her now, see what she'd have looked like," he said.

"We do chat about her quite regularly, which I think is a very nice thing. It's strange being three of us, when there used to be a fourth."

Her father, Kevin Wells, told an ITV documentary that the stress felt by him and his wife Nicola following their loss almost led to the break-up of their marriage.

But he added: "She was lost in a kind of wilderness whereas I was more hard-line about my emotions.

"For the first five months after Holly died we broke down together, but after that we processed our grief at different speeds.

"It was one, almost two years before we found each other again, but grief gives you a different sense of the passage of time and it slipped by unnoticed."